


After the Desert

by antiphonhex



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-29
Updated: 2014-09-29
Packaged: 2018-02-19 06:17:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,641
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2377910
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/antiphonhex/pseuds/antiphonhex
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Soldier AU. Struggling to find meaning after discharge, Dean visits the house of his dead friend Jimmy, looking for Cas.</p>
            </blockquote>





	After the Desert

Dean pounds on the door for the fifth time.

“Cas? It’s me. Drag your lazy ass out of bed and let me in.”

There’s no answer. Dean only succeeds in knocking free a few more flakes of beige paint from the door frame. Huffing, he hops off the concrete porch and walks around to the back of the house. Weeds clog the side alley, enshrouding the stained, mustard-yellow couch that he helped Cas drag out a month ago. He wades through a minefield of refuse to reach the back door.

“Cas! 

He kicks aside a cardboard box of empties and reaches through the ripped screen to jiggle the latch. The door eases open with a creak. 

The lights are all off on the main floor. Bottles clutter the kitchen. He can hear wind whistling though a cracked window somewhere in the living room. Dean stomps the worst of the dirt off his boots and heads upstairs. 

The master off the landing is still a wall of boxes. Cas has taken over the smallest room at the far end of the hall. The floorboards protest Dean’s weight. Fresh scrapes mar the wood and Dean wonders what Cas has been moving around up here cause he sure hasn’t renovated.

“Cas?”

The bed is made, corners crisp and tucked. Cas’ duffle bag sits on the foot. That damn beige trench coat he rescued from a market stall in Baghdad hangs as the lone occupant of the closet. Stray bars of light seep through cracks between the cardboard ducktaped over the window. 

It’s a sparse sight, but no worse than Dean’s room back at Sam’s apartment. He keeps swearing he’ll make a change. His next weekend off, he’ll borrow some tools from the garage, pick up a fresh case of beer, and help Cas whip this place into shape. 

Except he hasn’t taken a weekend off in months. And his conversations with Cas, charged and frantic in the beginning, like a broken tap pouring out the long hours waiting for daylight, have slowed to a trickle.

A sharp crash reverberates through the walls from somewhere beneath Dean’s feet.

He’s down the stairs before his conscious mind can catch up. Pulse hammers loud in his ears but his hands stay calm and careful as he turns the knob on the basement door and takes the steps two at a time, ignoring the pain that lances up his thigh.

A chaos of images paints his mind. The unbroken sun seared into the backs of his eyes. Jimmy tying his boot in the shadow of their armored truck. Lamplight glancing off Cas’ too-blue irises the last time they played poker together. The twist in Dean’s stomach because something that bright shouldn’t look so empty.

A figure sits against the basement’s central pillar under the wavering light of the bare bulb rocking above. He knows its Cas because of the restless mess of hair, untamed since he stopped wearing a helmet. The limp hand propped up on one knee holds the long blade of a samurai sword.

Dean drops his weight to the concrete with a loud stomp. Cas doesn’t flinch. Dust swirls in the moist air, a faint rain dotting the bright halo that outlines his hunched form. Shards of glass litter the ground near the edge of the light’s reach.

“It’s me, buddy,” says Dean. He walks a wide circle, keeping plenty of space between them.

Cas’s head lowers. A slow hiss of breath collapses his torso. The hand with the sword twists with a languid curl of muscle.

Dean swipes a path through the glass with his boot. A few feet away, he sees the upended form of the cabinet. Glints of gold, silver, and bone-white china clutter the inside like bared organs. 

Cas starts laughing. His shoulders shake. His head snaps up, bearing a wild-edged grin. For a moment, Dean is lost in the cold oasis of those eyes.

“Your dad’s cabinet give you some lip?”

“Thought I’d put it out of it’s misery.” 

“Hate to break it to you, buddy, but I don’t think it was suffering.”

“Someone was. Someone was forced to leave their treasures behind for a wannabe warrior to gather up like spoils.” Cas twirls the old sword, elegant fingers tapping a caress into the hilt. “He was so damn proud of this thing.”

Dean hums. He lowers himself with a grunt, bad leg propped out at an awkward angle. He wiggles against the hard pillar, until their shoulders meet. He never met Cas’ dad, and Cas never met his. That was just the kind of shit you flung out, wired up on patrol, compelled to fill the vacant minutes. Maybe a bit of what sealed them together. Like finding out Jimmy had a house in Palo Alto. The stuff that stuck, even when Jimmy and Gabe were gone.

Sam mentioned enlisting once, after a summer cooped up in that year’s version of a grungy apartment back in Kansas. That was the night Dean cornered his father in the alley behind his latest drinking hole and swore he’d never send home another cent if Sam got within a hundred feet of a recruiting station. Cas and his brothers never had that choice. Five generations military—it had been bred into them.

Sam’s in his final year at Stanford now—the only good thing to come out of their shitty family. Dean knows if he asked the same question of Cas, he’d name Jimmy without a second’s hesitation. 

Maybe Dean agrees, because Cas is at least as fucked up as he is. But there’s also that selfish part of him that thanks every non-existent entity he knows that Jimmy stepped first into that shrapnel.

He figures that makes him some kind of monster. He wishes he knew what Cas thought, living in Jimmy’s house.

“Move out,” he says. “Get your own place. Hell, crash with me and Sam. Anything’s better than this shithole.”

As expected, Cas shakes his head. A maddening little smile plays across his chapped lips.

For a while they sit in silence. Somewhere in the walls, a mouse skitters about, scratching.

“I’m thinking of going back,” says Cas.

Dean’s stomach drops. “Yeah?”

“Been thinking about it for a while. You know they’ll take me. They’re short handed as it is.”

He’s dreaded this conversation for months. “You hated it.” 

“I took issue with my father’s orders. The desert itself… kind of grew on me. I had a purpose there.”

“You have a purpose here.” Dean regrets the words as soon as they spill from his mouth, hates how needy they sound. Cas followed him here, not the other way around. Dean, the screw up since birth, somehow ended up with a steady job and a brother who keeps him out of trouble. What does Cas have? A house of ghosts.

Cas tilts his head, a gentle smile curling his mouth. “I’d be gone already if it wasn’t for you.”

Fuck. The nerdy little dude always laid it out so blunt, blue eyes clear and unashamed. Not like the roiling turmoil twisting in Dean’s gut.

“I can’t go with you.” Dean digs his fingers into his thigh, signals confused by numb patches. He rubs at the ache already building. He’d been lucky, everyone said. Sometimes he wished it had been worse. A clean cut. 

“Would you want to?” asks Cas.

He doesn’t know how to answer that. Pressure throbs in his head, waking the remnants of a hangover. Cas is right about one thing. It had been simpler under the hot sun. Even trying to reconcile all the shit coming down from above, he’d experienced something pure in existence there. Something closer to family than he’d even known at home.

But he does have family. He has Sam.

“I need you too,” he whispers, so soft he’s not sure Cas will pick it up. He ducks his head. He should punch himself in the face for acting like a little bitch. At least Cas took his frustrations out with a freaking sword.

A puff of warm air tickles his neck. Cas slips an arm around him before he knows what’s happening, cold nose pressed into his skin. “Dean,” he breathes.

Shivers race down Dean’s arms. Sure, they’ve held each other before. Seen each other at their worst—stunned and shaking. You take what comfort you can get. But the battlefields are far away. Jimmy’s basement ain’t covered under _what happens in the desert…_.

Cas pulls back when he feels him shrinking away. “Dean,” he says again.

Cas’ low, gravelly voice has a way of slipping under his defenses. Dean looks up and is trapped in that calm gaze. Time flows strange. Dean used to tease the guy about that. His presence has this weird way of skewing reality, like a freaking TARDIS. Or some kind of alien, desert angel standing over him while smoke cascades into the blackened sky. Maybe it’s just Dean’s reality, but still.

Cas leans in slow, giving Dean every chance to jerk away. Their foreheads touch, and Cas cups his jaw, angling their breaths to mingle. “What do you want, Dean?”

“Don’t go.” Dean’s voice cracks in his throat. “Not yet.”

“Okay,” says Cas. “Not yet.”

He swallows Dean’s next breath, tasting of dust and stale beer.

Dean flounders and locks hands around his friend’s biceps. His pulse sprints through his chest. He should stop this right now. He doesn’t do this.

Cas sleeps with men sometimes. He’s never hid that fact. Dean had to pound sense into a few too many smart-mouthed jarheads to keep his head in the sand. And yeah, Dean’s caught enough lingering glances to know that if he ever threw up a green light, Cas would go for it. But aside from the one night they don’t talk about, he’s always kept a careful wall between them. They don’t do this. They can’t. He has a list of reasons worked out in meticulous detail.

Cas pulls back, lips wet and pink, a question in his eyes.

The excuses crumple—a fragile house of cards. Fixated on those lips, Dean finds a stronger impulse roaring though his blood. Cas deserves something. Anything. A reason to stay. Dean’s shitty at words, but he’s good with his hands. 

He reaches out, fingers shaking, and twists his hand in the ratty green hoodie Cas is wearing.

A sound escapes Cas’ throat, somewhere between a growl and a gasp. 

Warm. The frigid concrete of the floor barely registers against the fire lit over Dean’s chest. Cas throws a knee over his hips and covers him. Their mouths lock. A tongue invades, thorough and exploring. Any sense he’d had that Cas would be soft and gentle about this flies up the rickety basement stairs. The kisses turn sloppy and open, then drop to tease his jaw.

Dean tries to meet the guy halfway. His hands roam Cas’ back, hiking up that ugly hoodie until he can touch bare skin. He’s had a fascination with that back ever since he glimpsed it during training, ages ago.

Cas’ teeth graze his throat. Dean balks under the attention. Knows he doesn’t deserve it. Not like Cas.

“Lemme see.” He tugs off the hoodie and the t-shirt underneath, then wrestles Cas around until he’s on his stomach, back bared to the hanging bulb. 

The delicate, feathery tattoo spans the whole breadth of his shoulder blades. Entranced, Dean traces it with fingertips until Cas writhes beneath him.

“Dean.”

The desperation pumped into his name drives a spike of heat through Dean’s groin. He bends and drops a kiss onto the back of Cas’ neck, follows the trail of his spine. When he reaches the belt line, Cas rolls and knocks him over.

They sprawl in a tangle, legs twined. Cas worms his long-fingered hands under Dean’s shirt and tweaks a nipple. Dean squeaks and squirms.

“You gonna let me do this my way, Winchester?” Cas rasps in his ear. “Cause I’ve wanted to take you apart since day one.”

Dean lets him peel off the layers of plaid—his manner of passive resistance to California fashion. As soon as his chest is exposed, Cas latches onto a nipple and bites. 

“You little fucker.” Dean grabs his ass in retaliation and arches his back into the first solid grind of their hips. 

Cas’ hand finds Dean’s belt and plucks it open. The buckle impacts with a clink somewhere across the room. A warm palm cups him and Dean’s legs jerk.

Dean rushes to mirror the action, twisting and shoving until Cas’ cock is a hot pillar in his hand. Cas’ breath hitches and he swoops down, sucking Dean’s tongue into his mouth.

Sharp hipbones dig into Dean’s knuckles. The weight steals his breath, fractures his fragile bravado. His joints freeze up.

He doesn’t know what he’s doing. He might look, now and then, but he’s always been too chickenshit to do anything with a guy. Unless you count that one night outside of Baghdad.

Just him and Cas are left to guard the truck, while Gabe and Jimmy meet up with some locals for what Gabe calls a little birthday R&R. It had been the result of some stupid bet they had going. Jimmy’s terrified face when Gabe led him off almost made up for pulling guard duty. But two hours later Dean is cranky, bored, halfway through his secret whiskey flask, and let’s face it—horny as fuck.

Dean swears Cas starts it with some off the cuff remark about the racy picture Jimmy keeps tucked above the dash. Somehow that grows into a swearing rant against Jimmy for having such a hot wife he obviously doesn’t deserve. Dean finds himself with pants pushed to his knees, cock in hand, beating off in a frantic contest as to who can befoul the photo first. His ardor ebbs a few minutes in. Deans’ had his share of conquests, but isn’t one for chasing other men’s wives. And he feels kinda guilty for using Mrs. Novak like a page from Busty Asian Beauties just because her husband is probably getting a blowie in the house up the street. He glances at Cas, hoping they can laugh it off.

Except Cas isn’t looking at the photo. Those ridiculous blue eyes are pinned on Dean, making a slow sweep from face to cock as he mimics the pace with his hand.

Dean freezes. Distantly, he thinks he should pull up his pants, but his muscles seem dislocated from his brain.

Cas doesn’t even blush. He keeps a steady rhythm, jaw locked under that same determined, squinty stare he uses when he handles his gun. His fist drives down, twists up, eyes glinting when he throws a little swirl of thumb across the head.

He comes with a tight grunt. A stray bit of splatter hits his chin. 

Dean’s stomach clenches. His own release bubbles over his fist a moment later. 

Cas smiles. He flicks his thumb across his chin and licks it clean.

Dean wipes his hand on a greasy rag he finds, pulls up his pants, and sits outside on the truck’s bumper, smoking a cigarette.

They don’t talk about it. Not when Jimmy and Gabe return, flushed and smiling. Not the next day when Dean nearly has a panic attack in the shower. Cas backs off and normalcy returns. A month later Jimmy’s wife writes that she’s leaving him, and Dean feels dirty about the whole thing.

“Hey, come back to me.”

Dean pries open lids he didn’t know he’d closed. Cas’ face fills his vision, worry knotting his brow. Dean meets his eyes, twin pools of summer sky, and feels his crazed pulse even out. 

“Always with you,” says Dean.

Cas’ mouth quicks. Dean reaches up and drags a thumb across that full bottom lip. 

“You like my mouth?”

Dean feels his cheeks heat.

“It’s okay. My mouth likes you too. Can I show you?”

When Dean nods, Cas shuffles down his body, dragging jeans as he goes. He drops the fabric into the growing pile and shimmies out of his own pants. 

Dean can’t tear his eyes away. Fuck. There’s no going back now, is there? Seriously gay shit is about to go down. His cock is so hard, he can feel it twitching a wet puddle against his stomach. 

Cas looks way too smug. Dean musters a smarmy grin. “You been dreaming of this, angel?”

Cas licks his lips. “You have no idea.”

 

***

 

Cas leans above him, one hand tangled in his damp hair, the other rubbing a thumb along the curve of his shoulder. “I wish we’d done that sooner,” he’s saying. “When we still had time.”

Dean slings an arm around his middle and tries to pull him down. “Got time now,” he slurs.

Cas presses a kiss to his lips, lingering but still too brief. “You’ll learn to live without me,” he says. “Until I find you again.”

Dean stretches up and nips at his collar bone. He wants to memorize that taste, that tang of moist skin under sweat and dust.

“Just a little longer.”

 

***

 

Dean is chopping onions when Sam swaggers into the kitchen, sweaty from his run. He liberates the orange juice from the fridge, and being the giant freak he is, takes the time to pour it into a glass.

He nods at Dean after a loud gulp. “You out all day?”

Dean sets down the knife and rubs his knuckles. “Yeah, some errands took me out to the burbs.”

“In Paolo Alto?”

Dean flinches. He keeps forgetting the house is supposed to be a secret. Sam’s studying to be a big-time lawyer. He doesn’t need the burden of Dean’s weird friends, squatting in dubious legal status in their dead brother’s house. While he fumbles with his dry mouth, Sam plunges on.

“Listen, ah… we were down at the courthouse today and I heard… they’re planning on tearing down Jimmy’s house next week.”

Dean gapes at him, the words rattling around in his skull before they finally process.

“Sorry,” says Sam. “I know you have a… connection to that place.” 

“It’s fine.” Dean picks absently at his hands. Sam’s gaze latches onto the movement.

“Dude, what’d you do, punch a window?”

Dean looks down, surprised to see abrasions in the skin. Small lacerations, fresh, still bleeding slightly. He pauses, searching his memory. Occasionally, he loses time. That’s nothing new. Except he wasn’t drinking today. Last night, maybe. It’s foggy.

He shakes his head. Doesn’t matter. Nothing Sam needs to worry about.

“Nothing, man. Just a little accident at work.”

Sam’s eyes narrow, and Dean waits for the hammer to come down. His brother knows damn well he wasn’t at the garage today.

But Sam doesn’t call him out. He just makes a huffy noise, eyes soft.

“Well Jesus, bandage that up. That’s not the kind of sauce I want on my burgers.” He stomps off to the bathroom and returns with a handful of supplies. Sam sits on the stool by the counter, gigantor legs bent like a mantis, and watches Dean clean and tape the cuts. He swallows down his orange juice.

“Listen, I’m meeting some friends from school downtown tonight. Just a few drinks, pretty chill. Why don’t you come along?”

“Nah, I’m good. You crazy kids go out and have fun.”

“Dean…”

“I’m good, Sam.”

 

***

 

Dean drums his bandaged hands on the steering wheel, cradled by the sweet hum of baby’s engine. Beyond the curb, Jimmy’s house sits choking in the high weeds.

When he first landed state-side, the thought of opening that door sent him running. Now he wonders how he keeps going, if he opens that door and doesn’t find Cas’ squinty stare behind it, asking what’s got his feathers ruffled.

It’s his own stupid fault. All those hours spilling time, shooting shit between firestorms and somehow they never got around to talking about what happens after.

Cas had three rules. _No spoils. No one left behind. What happens in the desert stays there_.

Maybe it was foolish to ever think the guy could live outside that hot sun. Cas never rained. He burned.

Somewhere, a desert wind blows both their names. Dean’s thigh aches. He’s never done well grounded. First chance, when things get tough, he skips town and leave those memories in the dust of his wheels.

Except he doesn’t want to forget this time. Not Cas.

He kills the engine.

 

***

 

Dean sits on the hood of the impala, a samurai sword balanced across his knees. In the distance, an umber sunset washes across the rugged swathe of Mohave desert. 

His shoulder aches under the new bandage, but it’s a good kind of ache. He found a halfway decent artist in Barstow, sketched out the rough design on a cocktail napkin.

Dean digs out his cell and miraculously, finds a single bar of connection. He dials his brother’s number. Sam answers with a rushing train of breath, piling sentences into a barrage of questions.

“No man, I’m good. Tell Bobby thanks again for the time off. I’ll be back on Tuesday.”

Sam rambles on for a while about school. He sounds bubbly, happy. Dean tells him so.

“Yeah, uh… I kinda… I met a girl.”

Dean chuckles. “That’s my boy.”

“So… Tuesday?”

“Yup.”

“Dean… you gonna be okay?”

Dean is silent for a long moment, breathing into the phone. “You know, Sammy, you’re too young to remember, but Mom used to say we had angels watching over us.”

“You believe in angels now, Dean?”

“Maybe one.” Dean hangs up.

In the fading glimmers of light, he slips off the car and walks forward into the sand. He hefts the sword in his hand and drives it into the earth. Then he kneels and writes a name.


End file.
